The Madness of Crowds

Douglas Murray's 2019 polemic argues that social justice movements around gender, race, and sexuality have taken on the fervor of a new religious faith -- one that is intellectually incoherent, socially destructive, and produces victims while claiming to liberate them. Murray examines gay rights, feminism, race politics, and transgender ideology as case studies in crowd madness, applying crowd psychology to contemporary progressive culture.

Applies Charles Mackay's crowd psychology framework to contemporary identity politics, demonstrating how progressive movements function as secular religion with orthodoxies, heresies, and rituals of public shaming. Brought the 'woke religion' critique to a mass audience and gave it philosophical and empirical structure.